How to Heal a Mountain
Another pipeline went into service today
I’m posting this piece because today the news broke that the Mountain Valley Pipeline went into service. For my own efforts to fight it I am facing criminal charges and a massive lawsuit, and it wasn’t enough. Hundreds have poured their lives into this fight, taking it from the courts to Congress to the regulators, only to have the law and regulations waived by fascistic fiat. Land defenders have lived in trees and locked their bodies to every conceivable apparatus. The mountains themselves have fought back with landslides, earthquakes, and floods. Lives and communities have been upended. The project has been delayed by years and run double its projected costs due to incompetence, safety violations, and dogged resistance. This pipeline will kill millions: hundreds may die in the blast zone when the compromised and corroded pipe inevitably explodes in the unstable karst terrain, but it is also a carbon bomb that will accelerate the heating of the planet. The product it moves will be used to fuel genocide.
Fuck all pipelines. Fuck every corporation that is making bank off our deaths. Fuck every politician who forced this on us. Let this inspire you to build your community and take autonomous action to resist fossil fuels, cop cities, and the military industrial complex wherever you are, by any means necessary. We are out of time.
The piece below is a work of fiction expanded and revised from another version I posted months ago. Any similarities to real people, places, or events are purely incidental.
It took us 20-minutes to move 800 feet.
We’d been doing this for 3-hours.
We walked with our eyes closed because it didn’t make any difference. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. At least with my eyes closed the dead branches and briars were less likely to scratch them. The setting crescent moon did no good in a thick pine and cedar forest.
But we kept our headlamps off. We traded a branch in the eye for invisibility. They couldn’t see us. We couldn’t see shit.
“Might as well be in a dark coal mine,” I whispered.
“My great-granddaddy lost his leg in a coal mine,” Cheddar whispered back. Her great-granddaddy joined the union in 1921 and fought at Blair Mountain.
My fingers gripped the buckles on her pack, and hers gripped the fingers of Stanley’s pack in front of her. Stanley had the map and compass that was our only aid. Doggedly, we followed the bearing. It sent us onto steep ground that dropped away to the right. Cheddar’s feet slipped out on the leaves. She began to fall down the slope but my white knuckles wouldn’t let go of her pack. I dragged her back to her feet and our march resumed.
I struggled through the blackness, doubled over, creeping along on my toes, trying to be silent. The branches slapped and snapped and tripped me anyways. The whole forest must have heard us. The dog in the house half a mile away sure did. Smelled us, too. For sure. Baths in the creek stood no chance against a warm camo jacket in 80-degree heat.
Finally the road. We scampered across, into another thicket, and a butt-slide down a steep embankment onto the rocks of a dry late-summer creek bed. A steep climb through more trees, brambles, and darkness and we were there. We had found it. We stepped out of the tree line and looked up at the open sky. We were in it, the planet-killing gash in the earth that would bleed and bleed and bleed. I thought of the billionaires licking their chops, salivating, tipping their maws back to drink the blood it would spill.
If the pipe didn’t blow the first day it went in service. Did the owners of that house with the barking dog know that a 42-inch liquid natural gas pipe pressurized at over 1,400-pounds per square inch would incinerate them in seconds when it ruptured? Did they know it had failed the hydrostatic test several times? Would they call the cops on us anyways, if they knew what we were about to do? I breathed and sweated into the balaclava I wore because some of the neighbors had rigged the woods with game cameras to catch us in the act.
We’re trying to save your lives, dumbasses!
We crouched shoulder to shoulder in the washed-out rubble by the sagging erosion fence, half collapsed in the mud of the last heavy rain. The dark hulk of a side-boom loomed over us, sections of unlaid pipe lay beyond, then the trench. The machine blocked our view, but we knew there would be more machines lined up, parked for the night. Would there be security laying in ambush? There was only one way to find out.
“I’ll check it out,” I whispered. Cheddar and Stanley nodded.
“Stay low, stay quiet,” Stanley said. “Just a quick look, then come straight back.”
My heart pounded in my throat. Am I really doing this? Sneaking around like a commando in the dark? This wasn’t how I imagined my life turning out. I was supposed to be working a respectable 9-5, owning a house, having kids. But what was the point of jobs and houses and kids if the world was on fire and the people in charge were tossing us into the flames? I could do something about it. I used to be such an obedient kid. Would that compliance, that obedience instilled in me from infancy, take over if the bright light and commanding voice boomed from the dark, yelling, “Freeze?” I visualized what it would be like as I braced my legs, preparing to scramble up into the open. Would I obey? No, I’m going to run like hell.
I thought of those old grainy films of World War I, the ones with the soldiers slipping and sliding up and over the rim of the muddy trenches to face machinegun bullets with pumping hearts and soft flesh. It was like stripping naked, rising up over that crumbling parapet futilely shored up by sandbags and slouching nylon erosion fence. Open. Exposed. If they’re there, they’ll see me any second now. I crouched and ran and ducked against the side-boom. No yell, no light, no command. Maybe they’re just waiting. Waiting for me to get closer, then they’ll spring the trap. I peaked around. More side-booms lined up along the trench. Sections of pipe snaking down the slope. Two bulldozers and an excavator on the other side of the trench. The easement curved down the mountain slope and around to the left, blocking my view beyond the third rig. A blind spot. Better check it. I took three deep breaths and moved again.
Shit!
Four ATVs, the size of golf carts, parked in a square. Security! I ducked behind the next side boom and peered out. Still no shout. No floodlight. I waited for motion, voices. Nothing. Feeling bolder, I crept out and approached. Nobody there. The easement was silent under the crescent moon and clear sky.
I went back to Stanley and Cheddar, almost missing their hiding spot in the dark.
“Four ATVs parked 50-meters down slope, but nobody there. I think we’re good,” I whispered.
Stanley nodded and shrugged their pack off their back, slowly, quietly unzipping it. They produced three crescent wrenches, a can of WD-40, and handed them out. “You remember how to do it?” they asked. We nodded. They reached back in the pack and produced a tube of metal filler putty. “Bonus points if we add a little of this to the fitting,” they smiled.
“Nice,” I nodded. “You want to start with this one?” I gestured to the nearest side-boom. They nodded. Cheddar would take the next in line. I would run for the third. I emerged first, back down the line, disappearing into the night that swallowed up my companions behind me. Even though we were in the clear, my heart still pounded, my body still tense, feeling alone and naked in the open, still expecting the bright light and shouted command. Still it did not come.
I knew nothing about mechanics. I didn’t understand how these machines worked, but we’d had a crash course in how to break them, practicing on a rusty backhoe behind a friendly farmer’s barn. Quick and easy: just steal the hydraulic hoses. It would take them forever to replace. Clog up the fitting with putty, and you wreck the whole machine. So I groped around in the dark until I found a hose, followed it to one of the fittings, and fumbled with my wrench, adjusting it to fit. My hands shook as I cranked. Nothing. I cranked harder. Clang! The wrench banged against the machine and clattered to the ground as the fitting popped loose. Hydraulic fluid flowed freely. I crouched in terror, feeling along the ground, trying to find the dropped tool.
My breath roared in my ears as I searched on my hands and knees. No luck. I needed light. But a light could give me away. Was that it? Was I done? Should I abort? No. No fucking way. I’m finishing this. I had covered my headlamp with electrical tape, poking a hole with a pin to allow just the scarcest beam through. I pulled it from my pocket, shielded it with one hand, and clicked it on and off. The wrench was under the machine. I lay on my stomach and slid forward, avoiding the fluid soaking into the churned soil, reaching, pawing the ground until my fingers closed around the cold stainless steel.
I wondered how Cheddar and Stanley were faring.
I stood and found the hose, followed it back to its source. This time I was less clumsy. I detached one end, then started in on the other, spraying a little WD-40 to get it started. I finished just as I heard footsteps. A hand on my shoulder – Stanley. I held up the hose. They nodded, produced the tube of filler. I stood back as they applied it liberally to the open fittings. This machine would never run again. One down. Everything in me wanted to declare victory and run, to get out of there. We’d taken out three machines – a good night’s work by any standards. But there was no sign of security. Why not keep going?
I stowed the hose in Stanley’s pack and nodded towards the next machine in line. This one took us less than two minutes to dispatch. I was elated. How many more? It was like a game, racking up a score. How much did these rigs cost the company? Probably insured, but it would slow them down. I took next, Stanley went to the middle of the easement to work on a bulldozer. I was wrenching away when I heard a low hiss coming from the parked ATVs. I peered around the machine and saw the faint silhouette of Cheddar crouched by the tires. Slashing the tires – nice!
Feeling invincible, I returned to my work. The hose was almost off when I heard the puttering of a small engine in the distance, down the slope. My limbs went soft as the adrenaline coursed. Security! I looked towards the bulldozer and Stanley was running back to me.
“You hear that?” I asked. They nodded, then looked out into the easement. Where was Cheddar? I looked down the slope again. A glow of headlights. The sound getting closer.
“Cheddar!” Stanley hissed. Motion from among the pipes. I gave a sharp, low whistle, waved my hand. She scrambled over, breathing hard. “We gotta go!”
The ATV puttered closer, but still a half-mile off. Stanley paused as we ducked behind the machines. “Come on! Let’s go!” I whispered, frantic. They pulled out the tube of filler: one last job. Cheddar and I slid down off the easement as Stanley put the final touch on our handiwork. When they caught up we slid on our butts down the steep slope, stepped over the fence, back into the tree line. The ATV was almost on top of us, its headlights illuminating the wrecked mountainside, sharpening the silhouettes of the dead equipment. The vehicle stopped, engine idling. Men’s voices.
We froze. I lay back in the thickest brush I could find. If I didn’t move, they wouldn’t see me, right? Did they suspect we were there? Would they see what we’d done?
Lights flashed on the trees overhead, around us. Cheddar’s frantic eyes peered from her balaclava, met mine. Voices mumbled above. The engine idled.
“Hey! Over here!” one shouted. The light flashed away, plunging us into darkness. “Fucking hippies slashed the tires!”
“They might be close! Call it in!”
Fuck fuck fuck…we’re so fucked!
The light flashed on the trees again, shadows dancing and swaying as it panned.
No. Not fucked. They’re just private security. Can’t do shit to us even if they see us.
But still, they’d called the cops. The clock was ticking. Would it be the Sheriff? Staties? Freddies? Cops hated the woods. Only the Freddies would chase us in the woods, and this side of the creek wasn’t Federal land. The forest was our territory. Even so, we couldn’t stay.
The light retreated again, the voices a low mumble. It was as good a chance as we were going to get. All thinking the same thing, we slowly rose and crept forward. I lifted my right foot high, reached forward, slowly placed it down, toe-first. Then did the same with my left. The gentle rustle of brush against my body, the soft crunch of leaves and twigs under gingerly placed feet, still intolerably loud. Right foot. Left foot. Freeze. Listen. Right foot…
We picked our way down the slope beyond the reach of the stabbing probing light, leaving the easement behind, the voices fading. But with each step the slope grew steeper. We crab crawled, then scooted on our butts, then grabbed trees to keep from sliding. How much steeper could it get? I could see nothing in the blackness.
“How do we know we aren’t about to fall off a cliff?” I whispered. “I think we should break light discipline for just a second. Just to make sure.” Sure would be embarrassing to have to ask security for an evac for a broken leg.
Stanley hesitated, but agreed. They pulled out their taped headlamp, hooded it with their hand, and shined it down the slope for two seconds. No cliff. We slid for a few seconds and they checked again. All good. We slid. I sighed with relief when we reached flat ground. We pushed through the trees and brush and the dry creek we’d crossed before. Then the road. Were cops already combing the roads? The extraction point wasn’t far.
We scampered across, alert for the sound of cars, ready to dive into the bushes. The extraction point was a turn-off to a trailhead fifty feet off the road. We ducked into the darkness and hunkered down. Stanley pulled out their burner phone and texted our driver. Ten minutes passed. We drank water. Ate Clif bars and dried fruit. I dreamed of a cold dip in the creek. My radio crackled in my ear.
“All call. All call. All call. This is Doctor, Doctor. Do you copy? Over.”
“Doctor, Doctor, this is River, I copy. Over.”
“River, I am inbound for pick-up, 30-seconds.”
“Copy that.”
I leapt to my feet. “30-seconds. Time to move,” I rasped.
We jumped down to the little turn-off just as our ride pulled in and killed their lights. We’d picked our seats in advance so our hands were on the door handles almost before the car stopped. We dove in. Shut the door.
A cop car rolled past. White. Green Forest Service markings. Freddies! They had to have seen us.
“Fuck…get the radios and camo out of sight,” our driver said.
I unwound the wire and the radio from my body and shoved it in Cheddar’s pack. I stripped off my jacket and did the same. Cheddar handed me her radio and I stuffed it and threw all of them in the back.
Our scratched-up eyes gazed over our shoulders as we sprayed gravel and turned right, away from the billionaires’ henchman. We drove casual, the long way, an extra 40-minutes through the mountain roads, so we wouldn’t lead them home.